Up … off your knees!

Those interested in liturgical matters are sometimes accused of being inappropriately interested in externals when they should be out doing some works of mercy.

Well, probably, since we all fall short on that score.

(And guess what? I’m annoyed at myself for deciding to write about this kind of thing—again…)

The accusation implies that “conservatives” are most guilty on that score, while anyone involved in liturgy for more than five minutes suspects that liturgical “progressives” are just as guilty. And if you’ve been involved for more than two decades, you know it as a fact.

Cardinal Cupich of Chicago lit up Catholic Twitter yesterday with a column telling people that they shouldn’t kneel to receive Communion. His argument is that it is disruptive of the Communion procession and attention-seeking.

Nothing new here. But one does wonder what annoyed pastor put the bug in Cupich’s ear on this one when, yes, there are more important matters to which he could lend his voice.

Anyway.

The anti-kneeling stance confuses some, but again, those are folks who have not been around as many blocks as others. In short, in this, Cupich is reflecting the liturgical orthodoxy that became standard in the US by the 1980s: the Communion line as, yes, a procession with people singing as they went up.

It is important to recall that processions have been part of the liturgy from the earliest days of Christian practice. They give us a sensible experience of what it means to be a pilgrim people, helping us keep in mind that we are making our way together to the fullness of the heavenly banquet Christ has prepared for us. This is why we process into the church, process up to bring the gifts, process to receive Holy Communion and process out at the end of Mass to carry the Lord into the world.

This is post-1975 Liturgical Commission 101.

It’s also the orthodoxy that preached that since the Mass was an act of public worship, it wasn’t time to prioritize “private prayer” (how that works–how can you worship, even publicly, without some interior action, but maybe that was actually those folks’ “lived experience” who knows)–so this was the same era which told you you had to keep standing after receiving, keep singing multiple verses of We are many parts, never engage in private prayer, never kneel.

It would even be explained, to those who felt pain at this, who would like to kneel, that well, Christian life is about sacrifice?

There’s a lot to be said about this, and of course, it has been said. First of all: Much listening. So synodality. Such accompaniment.

Such trust of adult Catholics. No infantilizing there, no, none at all. Total respect.

For—can I say it?—lived experience.

And that really is the issue here. Church authorities who are all in on synodality and listening barely listening at all and once again, selectively imposing norms, standards, and policies here but not there, seeing grave threats to unity here but not there and celebrating the glories of diversity here but not there.

But to put Cupich’s contention in context:

What it reflects at its deepest level, I think, is the sense of the liturgical reformers–or at least that took control of the reins in the United States, especially–was that since the Mass is the action of the People of God, the actions of the People of God, actively participating, must embody, in an actively participating way, as a Body, the belief being expressed at that moment in Mass.

So, as I have said for a while, pre-V2, the rubrics micro-managed the clergy and let the laity alone for the most part. Post-V2, the landscape is reversed. The clergy can do whatever, er, these or similar words, sorry, and the laity are micromanaged.

Well, ideally the laity are micromanaged.

As I wrote a couple of years ago:

As I get older and reflect more and more on what I’ve seen and experienced, I can’t help but keep reflecting on the quite unsurprising replacement of the purported V2 goal of “worship as an organic expression of the community’s sensibilities” with the reality of “a few employees and volunteers telling everyone else what to do based on their preferences.”

Why? So, as I said, their actively participating actions reflect the liturgical action of the moment. Because we are the People of God who worship in this building and all of the other stuff is either a distraction or way for spiritual responsibility to be either lazily handed over to the clergy or greedily dominated by clerical action. We are not spectators, we are the actors, and all of our actions mirror the liturgical action of the moment.

My take is different. I say that the messiest scrum of a Mass in the most aesthetically incoherent old church actually does reflect the reality of the People of God. Powerfully.

Yes, the bishop is in charge of the liturgical life of his diocese and can do much to shape it, but the problem comes–and is an important one, I think–when bishops try to impose preferences or options and then justify their actions in a way that implies they are simply bringing us all into line with universal, deeply rooted practice and theology.

When anyone who has eyes to see, and maybe travels a bit, can see the nonsense at work.

First, in most of the world, Communion lines are not orderly processions where everyone is conscious of the vision of making our way together to the Heavenly banquet. They are scrums. They are drizzles. They are not orderly. They are haphazard.

Secondly, what we see if we look around is that, yes, kneeling to receive Communion is fine in other places. I go to a church with a Communion line and loads of people kneel to receive and it is not a big deal at all. Communion rails are inching back. I was at Mass in the Cathedral of a major southern diocese (not mine) recently that used a Communion rail at which most knelt to receive, but some stood, again, no big deal. But that–the kneeling posture itself, while it probably irritates Cupich, is not the focus of his piece. Disrupting the flow and the symbolism of the procession is. But again, looking around, and paying attention and listening, you see how there is diversity in the reception of Communion in the real world, and maybe there’s unity in that diversity, too.

Secondly, scolding and refusing to listen to people’s reasons for wanting to kneel at this moment is not going to help your cause. Especially in an archdiocese where interesting liturgical innovations are tolerated. Don’t be surprised when pointing and laughing ensues.

Finally, contra Cupich, I maintain that in this messiness of individuals approaching the Lord in this way, uncontrolled and free without clerics micromanaging us, we have a more accurate vision of the reality of how we are “making our way together to the Heavenly banquet”. Who envisions the journey of pilgrims towards the heavenly banquet as orderly and uniform? There’s racing, trudging, being dragged, skipping, laughing, stumbling, weeping, and yes, maybe even some on their knees. Perhaps Cardinal Cupich could benefit from thinking of the “Eucharistic procession” less as a post office queue and more as a “vast horde of souls rumbling toward heaven.” *

———

*From Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Revelation”.

(Editor’s note: This essay was posted originally on Charlotte Was Both and is reposted here, in slightly different form, with kind permission of the author.)

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